Brick by Brick: Yoshi's Island
by Abbie Dustin Hoffman
Summary: In the year 1962, Kamek the Magikoopa jumped on a broomstick and attempted to abduct two human infants as they were being delivered to their parents. He succeeded in taking one, but lost the other. The lost infant, led by fate, now only has one hope: an island of dragons. A retelling of the events that took place in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
1. A Young Man is Gone

**Chapter 1 - A Young Man is Gone**

* * *

He was late.

The stork was making a delivery that morning, and it was one of the longest distances over which he had ever carried. He had begun his journey while the starry, moonless sky was still a perfect black, and the glittering stars were the only heavenly beings that cast any light upon the landscapes below. Now, the perfect black had rolled over into a sleepy velvet blue, and he was little more than halfway to where he needed to go. In a few more hours, the intended recipients would soon be awake, and after not much more time would leave their house for the day. If he did not reach them before then, he would then have to wait all day at their door for them to return before they could claim their packages.

And the stork did not have all day to wait.

 _Take care, and don't take risks,_ the stork thought to himself. _Better late than sorry._

In his mouth, he carried two bags that were important, oh, so important. The cloth bags were each tied in a knot at the top, and inside were two human infants. They were twin brothers, and they looked nearly identical to each other. They were pale, and both had large heads, with brown hair, sloped foreheads, small eyes, and pointed chins. Their noses were massive - big enough for the stork to jokingly wonder to himself what they were hiding in there. To differentiate between the two of them, they had been given hats - one green, and one red.

They were peculiar children. The stork hadn't delivered thousands of children yet like some of his fellow delivery birds, and he didn't consider himself an expert in his line of work, but these two babies possessed some kind of intuition that he had never seen before. When they were first born, the hats were brought to them by an attending nurse, and they each chose their respective hat immediately, without quarreling with each other or even so much as glancing at the hat they did not choose. When the children were separated, whether by one wall or several, they always managed to find each other within only a few minutes.

Some of the stars closest to the horizon were disappearing in a haze of purple. The sun was coming up. The stork groaned to himself, and began to flap his wings faster.

The stork was typically an attentive bird. Most storks were. His reflexes were strong and quick. Carrying human babies, though, made one unnaturally slow. The stork had found in the past that he actually had to muscle his way through his reflexes in order to keep children safe. One couldn't be turning a corkscrew flip to avoid some tree or another incoming bird without the live cargo sustaining some damage, and that was inexcusable. Delivery storks needed to take care to give danger a wide berth, so that nothing could possibly go wrong.

That is, if the danger is known.

Suddenly, a shadow appeared in a gap between the clouds, and by the time the stork noticed it, it was racing toward him at blinding speed.

"SCRREEEECH!" The creature hurtled toward the stork, and just before the fateful moment, the stork was able to make out some of its features. Short beak, that curved sharply downward. Blue cloak. Pointed hat. Round, extremely thick glasses. A broomstick, that somehow empowered the creature with flight. Other than that, the stork couldn't visually interrogate the creature's appearance any more before it crashed into him headlong.

"THE BABIES ARE MINE!" the creature screamed, and with one claw outreached, it hooked the bag of the child with the green hat as it simultaneously broadsided the stork in the face with its shoulder. The stork was knocked semi-conscious in midair, and was sent spinning out of control. The second bag, containing the child with the red hat, slipped out of his mouth and plummeted out of the sky. The creature on the broomstick disappeared with the green-hat child as quickly as it had arrived, and the red-hat child hurtled helplessly toward the ground.

* * *

Yoshi the dragon was strolling through the forest near his home. He had one of the nicest dugouts owned by any green Yoshies on all of Yoshi's Island, as he would often tell his friends. Upon waking up a few minutes earlier, he had decided that he would go for a walk around his territory before he returned to his dugout for breakfast.

Suddenly, something caught Yoshi's ear. It was a kind of whistling noise, but it didn't seem to be a particularly pleasant one. It was quiet, but increasing in volume fast. Yoshi looked up, and spotted an unknown object falling out of the sky.

Thinking on his feet, almost instinctively, Yoshi jumped into the air, and began madly kicking his feet to briefly hold himself up. As he began to fall back down, the object caught up to him, and he brought it safely down to the ground on his back. Before he could even take the object off of his back to inspect it, it broke open. The flaps of the cloth bag fell apart and draped themselves over Yoshi's back, and revealed the baby with the red hat.

Yoshi stared back at the baby for several seconds, and then looked upward. No sign of another being could be seen overhead, at any height. After rubbing his eyes for a moment, Yoshi gently set the baby on the ground and turned around to have a good look at him. The baby was oddly calm for having fallen out of the sky the way he had, and he seemed to be just fine. How fortunate!

The next object that fell from the sky gave Yoshi no warning. He felt a _bonk!_ on his head, and turned around to find a tight scroll of paper rolling to a stop on the dirt path. He looked up again, and once again, he saw nothing. His eyesight must be going south. Making a mental note to eat more carrots, he gingerly picked up the scroll with his paws. He unrolled it to reveal pictures of several islands, with lines drawn from one to another and some other characters at the top of the page.

Yoshi had seen some maps before, and thought this looked like one, even though not all of the lines looked familiar. He also knew what it looked like when babies were being delivered by storks, cloth bag and all, and correctly guessed that the baby had been dropped by a stork. He even theorized that the map came from the stork as well, and was being used by the stork to navigate to some place. Unfortunately, Yoshi could not get much farther without help, so he packed up the baby and set off to tell the other Yoshies what had happened.

* * *

"AAAAAAAAAAKK!"

Kamek the Magikoopa had just returned to the castle he lived in after kidnapping the baby with the green hat from the stork. Unfortunately, Kamek had intended to steal both babies, and simply thought they were both being kept in one bag. He did not realize his mistake until now, as he opened the bag and looked down at only one pair of eyes, blinking up at him.

Kamek turned toward the four other Magikoopas in the room. They were of the same species as he, but their dress and appearance contrasted enough with his to make it obvious even to enemies that they commanded a subordinate level of respect. These Magikoopa officers wore red cloaks that contrasted with his blue, and instead of using brooms to fly, they used propellers attached to the hoods of their uniforms. They were indeed high-ranking officials in the army, and they reported directly to Kamek. On bad days, though, he still treated them like common green-shell Koopa Troopas. And this was a bad day.

"FIND THE OTHER BABY!" screamed Kamek, jumping up and down. "DO NOT REST UNTIL HE IS HERE IN THE CASTLE!"

Three of the officers hurriedly threw open a window and dove out, flying into the distance on their spinning propellers as they chattered worriedly amongst each other. The other one, however, nervously lingered, looking up at Kamek.

"WHAT?" spat Kamek. "What are you waiting for?!"

"Sir?" asked the red-hooded Magikoopa. "Why do you need both?"

Such insolence. Kamek was so furious he could barely see. Breathing in slowly, and out again, he reached up and pulled his glasses off from his face. His eyes glazed over as he looked past the officer and out the window through which the other Magikoopas had just left.

"Mark my words, officer," he said slowly, staring through the distant window. "If you do not find this child and bring him back to me, dead or alive, you will bring a pure hell down upon our heads that we will suffer under for decades to come."

Kamek then took three steps forward to come nose to nose with the officer, and looked him directly in the eyes. "And if that happens," he said softly, "I will personally ensure that everyone in this army and their grandchildren, down to the last lowly _fish_ , will curse your name for it all." He raised his claws and shoved the officer away from him. "Now, _find that child!"_

The officer Magikoopa gave a sheepish smile. "Yes, Mr. Kamek, sir," he said. He walked to the window, levitated up to meet the bottom of the window with his feet, and then turned back around to face Kamek. "I just have one more question, sir."

Kamek squeezed his wand so hard that red sparks shot from the end of it. "WHAT?"

The officer's smile disappeared, and his eyes narrowed. "What is my name?"

Kamek, wand still fizzling, stared silently at the officer. After a few seconds, the officer finally tipped backwards and fell out of the window. Kamek saw the officer reappear in the distance a moment later, with his spinning propeller pulling him through the air as he rushed to meet his three comrades.

* * *

Yoshi, carrying the baby with the red hat as well as the map, could see several of his fellow Yoshies prowling about in the communal clearing of the forest up ahead. He called out to them, and they turned and waved at him, beckoning him to come.

He had admittedly been walking at a leisurely pace to meet his friends. As far as Yoshi knew, this was a case of a single child who had simply been lost by accident. He, for the next few minutes, at least, would be blissfully unaware of the real danger at hand. Indeed, it only took the four Magikoopa officers a matter of minutes to reach Yoshi's Island, and they were already searching for the baby that Yoshi was carrying.

Yoshi looked up. A purple Yoshi was running down the path to meet him, waving one hand. When she reached Yoshi, she dug in her heels hard enough that a cloud of dust sprayed up around both of them. The baby with the red hat looked around in bewilderment, seeing everything suddenly coated in brown, and he pulled down his hat around his face so he wouldn't have to understand what was going on.

The purple Yoshi was impatient. _Where have you been?_

Yoshi simply pointed his thumb at his back.

The purple Yoshi glanced briefly at the baby with the red hat and then looked back at Yoshi, before her eyes widened and snapped back to the baby.

Before Yoshi could say anything, both he and the baby had been whirled up the path and into the clearing. The baby in the red hat was sat down on the ground, and Yoshi along with seven of his friends were sitting in a circle around him. As Yoshi explained how the baby had fallen from the sky, and how an unknown map had fallen with him, the other Yoshies began debating with each other. _Who is this human child? Who are his parents? What happened to the stork that dropped him? Who should they bring him to? How do we find them?_

As the Yoshies conversed more and more intensely, the baby with the red hat sat by himself, staring into the eastern distance. His twin, the baby with the green hat, was in that direction. He could feel it. His twin was rather far away, but he could see him in his mind's eye, and the quickest way to get there began with the path in front of him. The baby with the red hat slowly raised his naked arm, and held an open hand toward the eastbound path. His lip began to quiver as he thought of his brother, and a tear pooled in his right eye and fell down his round cheek.

Yoshi, the one that had caught the baby with the red hat, looked down at him. What he saw was nearly haunting; the baby sat completely still, failing to suppress his emotion as he silently pointed down the path. Yoshi looked down the path the baby pointed at, and understood. That was the direction they were supposed to go.

Yoshi picked the baby up and placed him on his back. He took a step toward the path the baby was pointing at, and looked back at the baby. _Is this really what you want?_

The baby with the red hat looked at Yoshi, and wrapped his arms around his neck, indicating his readiness to travel. That was good enough for Yoshi, and they began walking down the east path, away from Yoshi's friends.

They had made it almost forty paces before the purple Yoshi noticed that the baby was missing. She ran to catch up to them. _Just where do you think you're going?_

Yoshi was calm, and almost nonchalant. _This is the direction the baby wants to go._

The purple Yoshi nearly laughed. _How could you possibly know where the baby wants to go? This human is an infant. He can't speak, or even crawl._

Yoshi gestured to the baby. _See for yourself._

The purple Yoshi looked at the baby with the red hat, but the baby with the red hat did not look at her. He may have not even noticed her. The baby simply clung to Yoshi's neck as he looked directly eastward, without moving or even blinking.

The purple Yoshi looked at Yoshi, bewildered. She didn't know what it was, but Yoshi was right. This human baby had special intentions.

Yoshi and the baby turned back around to face east, and then Yoshi looked back at the purple Yoshi. _Let the others know where we've gone._

The purple Yoshi protested. _You have no idea how far you're going, Yoshi. You may not be able to travel such a great distance as this. We don't even know._

Yoshi turned back toward the purple Yoshi. _Well, what do you propose we do?_

The purple Yoshi pointed backwards at the other six Yoshies. _Get them to help us._

Yoshi shook his head. _Eight Yoshies can't really carry a baby at once._

The purple Yoshi stamped one foot. _No, but they can carry a baby one at a time for eight times longer._

Yoshi frowned. _What do you mean?_

The purple Yoshi spread her arms wide. _What if we set up a relay system? Get a bunch of Yoshies involved. Not just the eight of us, but dozens of us, across the island._ _We could each carry the baby a few thousand paces, and then pass him on to a more local Yoshi, who would carry it to someone else in turn._

Yoshi thought for a moment, and nodded. _This idea could work. But we need to get going, now. You get the message going toward the Yoshies in that direction, and I'll start walking until somebody meets me._

The purple Yoshi nodded, but put a hand on Yoshi's shoulder. _Just be careful._

Yoshi smiled. _You have to be, carrying a baby._

The purple Yoshi waved and then ran back to tell the other six Yoshies the plan, while Yoshi and the baby began the journey eastward.


	2. Good to My Baby

Chapter 2 - Good to My Baby

* * *

Yoshi and the baby with the red hat were standing at the edge of the forest, facing two Shy Guys.

The little masked creatures had always been a pest on Yoshi's Island. They were small figures, no more than three feet tall, and they would wear hoods and white masks to conceal their identities whenever they were out in the open. There were all kinds of them - some walked on their two feet, some would turn flips incessantly, and some even used propellers attached to their heads to fly. And all of them had a better day if they injured or even killed a Yoshi.

Yoshi looked back at the baby he was carrying, and shook his head. Couldn't tell the baby that, though. Wouldn't want the child to get upset - assuming that he even could get upset.

Besides, Yoshies were much more of a pest for Shy Guys.

Yoshi opened his mouth, and shot his tongue out in front of him, like a grappling hook. He caught the first Shy Guy through the eyehole of its mask. Before it could even cry out in surprise, he yanked it back into his mouth and swallowed it. The Shy Guy was digested in little more than a second, and as Yoshi closed his eyes and pushed his pelvis down toward the ground, a large egg breached his behind. Without taking another step, Yoshi picked up the egg and hurled it at the second Shy Guy. The egg created from the first one was the same size as the body of the second one, and thanks to Yoshi's powerful throwing arm, the second Shy Guy was killed upon impact.

Yoshi looked back at the baby and smiled. _That was easy._

The baby wasn't paying attention to Yoshi. He was staring up at something. He pointed to the space in the air above where the Shy Guys had been, at three suspended coins.

"Wow," Yoshi said out loud. These coins could be found in various places on Yoshi's Island, but they were usually more hidden away than this. They were also somewhat mysterious to Yoshies. Nobody knew where they came from. Yoshi had heard that these coins were a high-trade currency in other lands, but neither he nor his friends could find many useful things to do with them. They had no commerce on the island. Yoshies mostly had things common among one another. These coins were mostly just considered relics.

Something inside told him to take them anyway. He frowned at this, and wondered why. After all, coins couldn't make the trees bear fruits that weren't already there, could they? What could he do with the coins? But the feeling persisted, and he shrugged and went with it. He jumped up to catch the first one, and then flutter-kicked his legs to hold him in the air as he took the second and third one.

They were now three coins richer.

They kept moving. Yoshi ran underneath a suspended platform, and jumped up to hit the central block in the platform with his head. The central block was a special spotted one; it was a block that lifted and increased in size upon physical impact. Yoshi then backtracked a few paces and jumped up on the platform and then on the swollen central block. On top of this block were four more hovering coins, which Yoshi also pocketed. From there, Yoshi bounded onto a nearby boulder, and then as he sprang to another boulder, he collected another four coins.

Yoshi shook his head. _Coins are plentiful these days._

At the edge of this boulder, Yoshi and the baby with the red hat were met by a small canyon about eight meters across and of at least the same depth, with the path continuing beyond the opposite cliff. The opposite cliff was also higher than the one they stood on, making for a formidable gap for most creatures. Four shiny coins dangled in the air over the large stretch, as if strung in place and hanging from the clouds on invisible wire.

Yoshi flexed his paws. _I think I can make this._

He bent his knees, and leaped as high and as far as he could. He began flutter-kicking halfway across, and barely made it; he slammed his feet into the sloped side of a boulder on top of the cliff, and quickly ran to the top of it to avoid falling down.

But, he collected all four coins on the way across.

Another boulder now sat in front of them, one which was too high to clear with a normal jump. Yoshi would have begun looking for a way around, but something lying in the middle of the path kept him from doing so.

A small white ball rested in the sand, partially embedded. Yoshi walked up to it, and peered at it curiously. After a moment, he decided to unearth it, and kicked it with his right foot. His foot made an impact against the ball, and then shot completely backwards. The momentum from his foot being rejected sent Yoshi toppling forward, landing nose first in the sand right next to the ball. The baby with the red hat clung to Yoshi's neck on the way down, but swung helplessly to the side of his neck instead of the back, and landed in the sand bottom-first at the same time as Yoshi's nose.

Yoshi rolled over to look at the baby. _Do you ever cry?_

The baby wanted to look back at Yoshi, but was having trouble keeping his head up. His big eyes would peer up at the young dragon, only for the weight of his skull (or perhaps his nose) to send his head swinging down.

Yoshi shook his head. _You are a cute thing._

He picked the baby with the red hat up as he stood. He stepped onto the ball and took a breath, before making a small hop and then a massive spring jump from the ball. Yoshi and the baby easily made it to the top of the boulder, but then found themselves at the bottom of another cliff wall.

Yoshi looked around for a moment, and then realized: there was another trampoline ball on the ground. He shook his head. They sure were lucky.

Yoshi sprung onto the ball, and he and the baby were fired into the air like a rocket. By the time they reached the top of the cliff, they had probably flown about fifteen meters vertically. Yoshi pounded the cliff edge with his two feet, turned around and patted the baby to reassure him, and then took two steps forward before realizing that there were more Shy Guys in front of them.

 _Delicious._ He shot out his tongue, swallowed them both, and turned them into eggs to use later.

Taking care not to lose the baby on his back, Yoshi ran across a field, swallowing two more ambling Shy Guys. Jumping on top of another platform, he lashed out his tongue and swallowed a third Shy Guy, as well as a Crazee Dayzee.

Yoshi spat out a petal. He didn't like eating Crazee Dayzees. They were nice, pink flowers that smiled and whistled music. They were cute-looking. But, for some reason, they had a habit of walking right into Yoshies and pushing them over. And there was something about a smiling, whistling flower walking into you with its own two feet and then grinding its heels into your eye sockets until you could see the double helix of its plant DNA that no Yoshi looks forward to. So, breakfast it was.

Yoshi leaped over another Shy Guy, and stopped on top of a boulder to look up.

Above Yoshi and the baby was a flower, with no stem, stuck in the sky. It had a smiling face in the center of it, and seemed very glad to be there, but did not look as though it could move if it tried.

Yoshi wasn't even sure if it was conscious. He frowned. _Is it dangerous?_

Suddenly, Yoshi heard something else. A terrible crashing noise, but a sick, wet one, like somebody was bashing cymbals together while they were covered in oil. Pulling the baby's feet up onto his back and holding them there, he looked down over the edge of the boulder to investigate the noise.

The sound was a ferocious chomping, and it was being made by a Piranha Plant underneath the boulder.

Piranha Plants were Venus flytrap mutations that possessed teeth the size of shoes, had deadly toxins on the surface of their stalks, could trap adult Yoshies whole, and could sense movement several meters away. The original mutations were made several decades ago by some halfwit with a wand, and then got out of hand and before long lived wild across the island. Some Yoshis even reported seeing them spreading by airborne spores.

Yoshi shook his head and looked back at the baby with the red hat. _Are we there yet?_

The baby suddenly saw the Piranha Plant, and began to scrabble his fingers against Yoshi's neck as his face began to scrunch up and his eyes welled up with tears.

Yoshi immediately sat back up, away from the edge. _Oh no, no no no, don't worry. See?_ He gestured to the open space next to him on the rock. _It can't move, it can't follow us, it's okay. We're safe._

The baby with the red hat sniffled once, and looked up at Yoshi.

Yoshi looked around for a moment, and then realized he was still carrying a few eggs. He picked one up in his right paw, and scooped up the baby in his left. He made eye contact with the baby, and showed him the egg. _Here, watch closely._

He raised the egg, and threw it down over the edge of the boulder. He then brought the baby to the edge so they could both see what happened.

The Piranha Plant was hit above its upper row of teeth. Its mouth closed, and it promptly shriveled down in size until it disappeared with a popping noise.

Yoshi looked at the baby. _See? We killed it. Nothing to worry about._ They stood up again, and Yoshi placed him on his back. _Now let's get going._

Yoshi decided to jump up and grab the smiling flower anyway, and when nothing bad immediately happened, he continued on without thinking about it. They jumped down from the boulder and over another Crazee Dayzee to reach a suspended platform. Jumping up to it, Yoshi found a Shy Guy wandering around on it. He shot his tongue out and pulled the Shy Guy into his mouth, but before he swallowed it, he looked up again and saw a flying cloud, not three meters above their heads. This was a flying cloud for one reason; it had wings.

Yoshi smiled with his mouth full. _I love these things._ He coiled back and then spit the Shy Guy back out, straight up into the air. It slammed into the bottom of the cloud, fell back down to the platform with a grisly cracking noise, and then rolled off the edge, not to be seen again. The cloud, however, sank to the platform as well, and once it touched the floor, it disappeared in a puff of sparks. Where the cloud disappeared, new platforms began forming, very quickly. A staircase of about twenty steps took shape, and when it was finished, Yoshi realized there was another platform at the top of the staircase that had been there the whole time.

Yoshi hefted the baby and ran up the new stairsteps, collecting three coins, and at the top, he found nearly two dozen coins and a second smiling Flower amassed on the platform. While he picked them up, Yoshi noticed something peculiar. As he reached out to close his paw around every third coin or so, its gold appearance would shimmer and disappear, leaving a coin behind that was red in color as blood.

Yoshi was seeing a lot of new things today. Never had he seen these blood red coins before, and neither had he any idea of what they could be used for.

Once all the coins had been collected, Yoshi spotted a Fly Guy, hovering next to the far edge of the platform via spinning propeller. A second Winged Cloud was clamped between its feet. Yoshi quickly picked up another egg and threw it at the Fly Guy. The egg cracked it in the side of the head and bent its propeller, and the Fly Guy dropped the cloud onto the platform as it spiraled downward and out of sight.

Yoshi broke the cloud open, and found five or six miniature gold stars. They immediately began bouncing everywhere, and most of them fell off the edge of the platform and disappeared. Yoshi was only able to grab one, and surprisingly, the baby with the red hat reached out and managed to touch another. As they touched them, the stars dissolved, and silver starry glitter travelled up their arms, around their heads, and finally disappeared.

Yoshi looked at the baby, nonplussed. _Well, what do you suppose that did?_

* * *

Two of the four Magikoopa officers were flying eastward amongst the tops of the trees at the edge of the Yoshies' forest, and could see a series of cliffs up ahead.

"You think the baby's out that way?" asked the first officer.

"Beats me," said the second. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I don't know. Until I see some signs of the kid, though, I don't want to keep flying so low." He began to lift in altitude, and as he did, he pulled a stray sprig of pine from his armpit and tossed it toward the path below. "This forest has left an impression."

"Shame," said the first, rising to match his comrade's altitude. "You smelled much better that way."

* * *

Yoshi shrugged. _Oh, it probably didn't do anything._

After killing some more Piranha Plants and walking flowers, Yoshi and the baby soon came to a pipe, leading underground. Pipes were sometimes helpful methods of transit on the island, but Yoshi initially wouldn't have investigated it - what if there were Piranha Plants growing on the other side? However, the baby seemed attracted to the pipe, almost falling off Yoshi's back in order to reach it. So, Yoshi readied some eggs, and down they went.

When Yoshi and the baby with the red hat exited the pipe at the end location, it was through the ceiling. The pipe led to an underground cavern, one that was large and almost completely flat. Yoshi could actually see a second pipe in the ceiling on the other side, even though it was at least a hundred meters away.

Yoshi and the baby hopped down from the ledge underneath the pipe. Besides a large spherical stone, there wasn't much else on the cave floor.

Yoshi looked to the top of the cave, and saw a floating Shy Guy, a couple Barons von Zeppelin (conscious balloons), and another couple dozen coins suspended in midair, stretching from one end of the cave to the other.

He looked at the baby with the red hat. _We need to get going, right?_ He made sure the baby was holding on tight, and then began running to the far side of the cave. _Someone else can have those coins._

Once Yoshi reached the other side, however, he was disappointed. The ledge underneath the exit pipe was too high to reach from the cave floor. He couldn't even flutter jump to reach it.

He looked at the baby. _Can you jump that high?_

The baby with the red hat responded by looking back at the other side of the cave.

Yoshi rolled his eyes as he looked back. _Don't tell me you want to go back-_ He stopped, as his eyes rested on the faraway spherical boulder.

He sighed.

A few minutes later, Yoshi was beading sweat as he knocked the boulder against the edge of the cave. Holding onto the baby, he climbed up onto the boulder with one paw, and after taking a second to breathe, he bent his knees and jumped for the ledge. He cleared it by a few feet.

Yoshi looked back at the baby. _Did I even need that?_ Without waiting for the response that wouldn't come, he braced the baby's bottom with his right hand and jumped up headfirst into the pipe, letting the pipe's suction do the rest of the work.

Once released from the pipe, Yoshi and the baby with the red hat found themselves above ground, but still in a large ditch. Looking around, Yoshi and the baby found a few coins and another Flower, and after finding nothing else, decided to keep moving. They scrambled to the highest point on the ditch floor, and Yoshi made a large leap to the far ledge. He easily cleared it by fluttering his feet, planting his feet firmly on solid rock.

Yoshi smiled at his success, and then looked up. They were standing three feet from a Piranha Plant.

 _Not again._ Yoshi pulled his arm back and hurled an egg into the Piranha Plant's mouth. The egg knocked two teeth out of the plant's mouth on its way in, and Yoshi could see a greenish sap begin leaking out from the empty roots before the Piranha Plant shuddered, shriveled and died.

Yoshi and the baby stepped over where the plant had been and jumped down from the rock into another, wider ditch. Hanging in this ditch, in midair, was an anchored set of four platforms constantly rotating backward, almost like a reverse Ferris wheel. It must have been motorized, because it was making a lot of noise as it turned. More Piranha Plants were also in this ditch; they were hanging upside down, just underneath the top edge of both ditch walls. Four coins were also hovering about near the ditch floor.

Yoshi swiped the coins, which all happened to be blood red coins in disguise. He looked backward, and saw another Flower, resting underneath the ditch wall they had just come over. He reached out and grabbed it with the left hand, while reaching behind himself for an egg with his right in order to kill the Piranha Plants.

He was out of eggs.

Looking around for something else to throw, he found nothing. It was only him, the baby, the two carnivorous plants, and the backwards Ferris wheel.

He sighed, and holding onto the baby with one paw, he ran for the Ferris wheel and jumped onto the bottom platform. The platform creaked and wobbled, and began rolling up toward the ditch wall and toward the dangling Piranha Plant. The Ferris wheel moved quickly, and in only a second Yoshi's nose had passed inches from the mouth of the Piranha Plant. As soon as he could, Yoshi leapt over the beast of the vine and landed on the top of the ditch.

A sign had been driven into the rock at the top of the ditch, pointing out the path ahead. The path trailed down a hill to a flat stone bridge over a crevasse, with an upright pipe providing the central brace for the bridge. Past the bridge was a tunnel into the side of a bigger hill, and Yoshi couldn't see past that.

As they ran down the hill, Yoshi glanced back at the baby, who was staring straight ahead.

Yoshi shook his head slightly. _I wish I knew where we were going. Won't you tell me?_

The red hat was bouncing on the baby's head. Yoshi reached back and pushed the hat down, but tipped it too far forward and covered the baby's eyes with it.

Yoshi kept running. _You're a swell human._

They reached the bridge, and as Yoshi saw nothing around, they continued running toward the central pipe.

Suddenly, the pipe made an exit noise, and Yoshi couldn't even slow down before a Shy Guy came flying out of the pipe and crashed into him headfirst. The white mask was made of some kind of ivory, and it bent Yoshi's nose sideways as they collided, nearly breaking it. Yoshi was knocked flat on his back, and the Shy Guy somersaulted over him.

The baby with the red hat was sent flying from Yoshi's back. While the baby was hurtling toward the edge of the bridge, a magical thin film began to unravel itself out of thin air, and wove its way toward the child. It circled the tumbling baby, and then expanded to form a sphere about eighty centimeters in diameter, protecting the child inside. Before the baby had even processed the shock, he had been encased in a magic bubble, and he was now floating in the air, nine feet over the bridge.

As the baby was reoriented to right-side up, he blinked, and looked down at Yoshi lying on his back, and the Shy Guy walking back toward him. Fear began to fill the infant boy's heart, and he drew in a large breath, and began to scream.

* * *

The first Magikoopa officer suddenly jerked upward. He looked at his comrade. "Do you hear that?"

"That's a baby," said the second officer. "A human baby."

"There's only one of those on this island!" said the first officer. He kicked his feet up behind him and dove headfirst toward the earth, with the second officer following close behind.

* * *

Yoshi rolled over onto his stomach, and saw the Shy Guy bearing down over him.

The Shy Guy, faceless being that it was, looked down at him blankly, and then lifted his foot in order to stomp him in the head.

Yoshi grinned, and opened his mouth wide. His tongue whipped out, and wrapped around the Shy Guy's extended leg. The Shy Guy gave a low moan, and then was pulled into Yoshi's mouth and swallowed, not to be seen again.

As Yoshi pushed the Shy Guy corpse into an egg, he began to scan the bridge frantically for the baby with the red hat. _Where is he? Where is he?_

Suddenly, a streak of sunlight blinded Yoshi. He raised his paw to shield his eyes, and once the shadows from his paw covered his face, he could see clearly. With wonder, Yoshi saw the baby with the red hat, the one he had found only an hour ago, floating in a bubble in the sky.

Now that Yoshi could focus, he could hear the atrocious noise that the child was making. Bubble or not, Yoshi determined to reach the child and to make sure he was safe again. He turned back around toward the pipe, ran to it and sprung up over his hands to land on top of it. From there, he turned around again, crouched, and dove into the sky.

As he came closer to the floating bubble with the precious cargo inside, he caught a glimpse of two distinctly reddish dots in the distance. He reached out and pierced the bubble, and took the child by the leg. As they came back down to earth, he pulled the child onto his back to hold him steady, and when they landed, he wrapped the child's arms around his neck.

The pipe made another exit noise, but Yoshi heard it this time. As another Shy Guy popped out of the pipe, Yoshi whirled and lashed his tongue out, catching and swallowing the Shy Guy before it even touched the ground.

* * *

The two Magikoopas began to slow down.

"Confound it," said the first officer. "That wailing kid was our ticket. Where did that noise go?"

"No idea," said the second. "But let's keep looking around here. If he starts crying again, we'll get him."

The first officer was frustrated. "Kamek himself will be here before long if we don't find this human. I'm worried that all officers will be demoted."

The second officer scoffed. "You're only worried about demotion?" He began to fly higher as he said, "It must be nice to be you."

Both of them lifted high into the air, and continued to search.

* * *

Yoshi took the baby off from his back, and held him in front of him. _Are you-_ He winced as he pushed the Shy Guy into an egg. _Are you okay?_

The baby's sobs had subsided. His eyes glimmered as he looked at Yoshi.

 _That's good. You look okay._ He wiped a tear from the baby's cheek.

The exit noise triggered again, and a third Shy Guy flipped out of the pipe.

Yoshi sighed. _Can't you see I'm tending to a child?_ He lashed his tongue out again, and in seconds, he had three eggs.

Three more Shy Guys ended up spurting out of the pipe before it finally went silent. Yoshi, now prepared and on edge, made quick work of them all, turning them all into eggs, but he still felt awful about losing the baby, and stayed on one side of the pipe for several minutes before proceeding past it.

As he did pass it, he felt the weight on his back shift, and he looked behind him to see the baby gesturing upwards with his hands. Yoshi looked up, and directly over the pipe was a winged cloud.

Oh, finally. Some good news. He hucked an egg skyward, and broke the winged cloud. It disappeared, and turned into five more of those miniature stars that they had encountered earlier. Not wanting to ask more questions, Yoshi collected them all and then moved on.

He ran through the short tunnel, stomping out two Crazee Dayzees along the way, and came out on the other side into the bottom of a chasm. The chasm was tight, and it was at least ten meters deep on the shortest side. The only thing nearby was another winged cloud.

Yoshi threw an egg at the winged cloud, dissipating it, and out from the cloud fell a single, brown seed. This seed was fairly large; it was about the size of Yoshi's shoe. It landed on the floor of the chasm, quaked for a moment, and then disappeared from view.

A great green vine burst from the ground. It was about fifteen centimeters thick, and it shot straight up into the sky. As it grew, it sprouted leaves as long as Yoshi's body, and did so every meter and a half of height. The vine rose to the exact height of the top of the pit, and as it reached its peak, it blossomed into a beautiful, smiling flower, with yellow petals and an orange center.

Yoshi was incredulous. Why would a winged cloud drop a seed of the perfect height of beanstalk, right on top of them? He looked at the baby with the red hat. _The will of the fates must be with you, little human._

Instead of scaling the vine like a rope, Yoshi climbed the vine by jumping up from leaf to leaf. It saved time. He fired an egg at the mouth of a Piranha Plant on the way up, and then jumped out onto the west side of the chasm. The other side was another four meters higher, with another motorized Ferris wheel in place to reach it.

Yoshi intended to keep going east, but something caught his eye. He ran about ten paces away from the chasm, and found a winged cloud, hanging off of a cliff. As he got closer, he spied a Baron von Zeppelin hanging beneath it, carrying a single coin.

Yoshi pulled an egg out and threw it at the cloud, which disappeared to reveal a smiling flower. He braced the baby with the red hat with his paw and jumped off the cliff, grabbing the fifth flower with his other paw.

As Yoshi touched the flower, a strange feeling overcame him. He felt a presence, a second presence, deep in his heart, and he felt a thick blanket of peace wrap around his shoulders. The baby felt it too, and snuggled closer to Yoshi's neck, even though they were hovering in the air.

As Yoshi began kicking his feet, he turned around in midair and began fluttering his way back to the cliff, landing safely on both feet. He breathed in, and then out, and then looked at the baby. _What was that? What on earth was that?_

The baby's eyes were focused. He was still looking at the high cliff of the chasm, and the path ahead.

 _Right, right. I suppose I won't get to know._ He ran to the Ferris wheel, and jumped on the lowest platform, allowing it to carry them up.

Yoshi shook his head as they watched the cliff edge get closer. _What is all this magic doing on my island? I've never seen so many unexplainable things. And all in less than twenty minutes._

At the top of the Ferris wheel, Yoshi found two more blood red coins, and nabbed them as he jumped from the Ferris wheel to the cliff edge. He landed on the cliff and took a few steps forward to find himself next to a large, spherical gray stone, one similar to the one from the cave. He crouched, wrung his hands, and pushed the stone forward. There was a downward grade in the path, and soon, the stone began to roll on its own, very quickly.

* * *

A green Shy Guy was wandering back and forth on the path, with nothing to do. A red Shy Guy was nearby, and after some deliberation, the green Shy Guy decided to walk over and talk to him. He took one step, and heard a large rumbling noise from behind him.

 _That couldn't have been my foot,_ he thought. _Could it?_

He turned around, and the last thing he saw was a boulder twice his size barreling toward him at forty kilometers an hour. The boulder crushed the Shy Guy, shattering his mask and pushing the front of his skull backwards, puncturing his brain. Seven of his ribs broke, squashing his lungs and slicing his heart nearly in half. Blood shot from his mouth, his torso, and even his head.

The red Shy Guy turned around, and blankly stared. The carnage was was the last thing he saw before he suffered the same fate.

Nothing different could be said about the Piranha Plant coiled behind the two Shy Guys, either. The boulder smashed into the plant, ripping it from its roots and breaking its whole head. The plant didn't even have time to gasp before its teeth broke through the back of its stalk and severed it, sending it to the ground in pieces.

* * *

Yoshi ran after the boulder and jumped over it as it hit a large outcropping, finally stopping it dead in its tracks.

He stopped on the outcropping, and squinted his eyes. He saw something in the distance, across a stretch of flat road. As he began running, jumping over the occasional Shy Guy, he was able to see a beautiful pink Yoshi, waiting for him and the baby with the red hat.

Yoshi looked back at the baby for a moment as he kept running. _Well, I guess this is it for now, isn't it?_

A single tear escaped the baby's eye, and rolled down his cheek and dropped onto Yoshi's back.

Yoshi felt a lump in his throat. But he smiled at the baby. _Don't worry! We'll see each other soon._

The road became flatter and flatter, and finally Yoshi reached the space where the pink Yoshi was waiting. To his surprise, it was the pink Yoshi from home, that he knew very well. In one way or another.

He smiled. _I didn't expect to see you here._

She folded her arms. _What, you didn't think I would help?_

 _I just expected somebody who wasn't standing around back home an hour ago. How did you get here before me?_

She tossed her hand forward nonchalantly. _Don't worry about it. Just take a load off. I'll take care of the baby for a bit and hand him to somebody else when I can._

The green Yoshi sighed, and reached backward to pick up the baby with the red hat. He handed him to the Yoshi with both hands, and watched her put the baby on her back.

He looked her directly in the eyes. _Follow his instincts. He knows where to go._

The pink Yoshi smiled as she turned around, her eyes not leaving him until the last second. _I have instincts, too, you know._

Yoshi watched as the pink Yoshi began to run down the path, until she and the baby with the red hat became a tiny spot in the distance.


End file.
